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[dragonsaver]

When I was in university an eon ago it was the same thing.

I actually was friends with several Chinese students.  1:1 everything was great however, sitting eating lunch etc they would speak to each other in Chinese and leave me sitting there.  That may be a reason that the American students don't mix with the Chinese/Japanese/Korean kids.

However, since you are advising them here is a couple of suggestions. Have them make friends with other International students whose native language is not Chinese etc.  Then the common language is English.  This will not be as difficult and will be a start. 

Emphasize that they must not speak their own language with others while being with their new foreign friends.

[The Local Dialect]

I graduated from the University of Texas (ahem, obligatory Hookem! -- Casey knows what I'm on about right? ) and we had an international student coop there that also had a lot of American students. My brother decided to live there one year and made some of the best friends of his life, an Indian guy and an Australian guy.

I think the language barrier is a big deal. Chinese students don't like getting out of their comfort zone and Americans in general are assholes about have a pretty low tolerance for people speaking poor English.

[CaseyOrourke]

I made it a point where possible to give my students videos made by international students downloaded from youtube.  Luckily many were by Chinese students who gave positive perspectives about their experiences.  I also told them to at least get to know the some of students in their class and use them as an asset in their own studies.  In fact if they made an effort to get to know the students, they would soon find out that American students were just as curious about them as they were should be of the Americans.

[Fozzwaldus]

from the article that NATO posted

And again, what’s so interesting is how often the complaining students were careful to note that they had no issues with Chinese students from Hong Kong or Taiwan or Singapore or Malaysia or the Philipines or the United States, “who are not this way at all.” The above views really do seem to apply to just students from China.

why IS that? I've heard this before too... is it just the sheer numbers and/or relative lack of international exposure?

So my thinking is that maybe the problem is in the numbers. If 500 students from China go to one university as undergrads, it is just too easy for them to act as set out above. But if 40 students go to a small college that reviews the application intensely for more than just the numbers (test scores and dollars) and absolutely will not tolerate its students not participating in class discussions and the life of the college, it can work out just fine. Your thoughts people…

I imagine this is true to an extent. One thing that is also true is that certain colleges and unis in Britain at least really do accept the dregs of Chinese educations, students who have nowhere near the aptitude to take part in a degree that is run through a foreign language. I do language testing on the weekends, and recently there were a gang of kids that kept repeating that 'next year I go England'. Not if the scores I gave them had anything to do with it. 

[The Local Dialect]

Fozz, I think the college they go to makes a huge difference. Lots of these kids having these issues are going to big state schools that have hundreds if not thousands of international students. It is easy for a native born student to feel anonymous at a school like that (my school had something like 20,000 students at the time), because even if you're not in a language program, your basic freshman year courses are going be these big surveys with 100+ students in them and you just don't really get to know people on an intimate basis at all.

I think that a lot of these public universities, especially certain unis (at my old school, pretty much every year the kids would end up going to the same crop of schools that are actively recruiting Chinese students), have their bar set pretty low for admissions, especially considering that the standards we consider heavily for college admissions in America, GPA and the personal essay, are practically worthless when it comes to Chinese students (the GPA can, and is, faked, and the essays are often written by agents). The test scores required, things they can't fake, are too low. 80 or so on the TOEFL or 6ish on the IELTS -- these scores aren't nearly high enough, the kids are going to struggle in those freshman courses. Kids with less than a 100 on the TOEFL really struggle with the SAT, forget AP English/freshman English. In America, it doesn't matter what your major is, everyone has to take freshman English, history, foreign language, social science. These courses are really language heavy. When you throw these kids into a huge survey course and they're expected to write research papers without a whole lot of guidance, well, it isn't really any wonder that they have difficulty.

I mentioned earlier that now I'm teaching some pretty awesome students and almost all of them have chosen small, selective liberal arts schools. I've got a kid going to Pomona (he got a 20k USD a year scholarship even), a girl going to Barnard, a girl who chose little known Colby College over well-known William and Mary, a boy who chose Oberlin over UC San Diego, a girl who chose Barnard over Tufts. These kids are not necessarily just looking at rankings, and they're actively avoiding schools with large Chinese populations. When they got their admission letters, we talked a lot about choosing a school that is a good fit, and these kids seem to really value small class size and individual attention. Most of all, they aren't afraid of being away from the safety net of a Chinese community.

I think a lot of these kids pay lip service to the idea of going abroad, but when it comes down to it they're not really up to the task. They have no idea what the reality of living in another country is like and they get overwhelmed and seek out the familiar, to their own detriment. This, combined with the innate Chinese desire for groups and community, really puts them at a disadvantage when they're in American schools.

[dragonsaver]

I have a former student who is excelling at her American university (Miami-Oxford).  Here is part of a message from her.  She is writing finals now and I asked her if she would get all 'A's' again.     In emails she uses 'speaking' English sometimes.     She blamed me for her high mark on her IELTS exam      I am proud she was my student.   

Some students do make the transition 

I'm gonna get A+ for most of the class, except for calculus. My attendance was bad for that class and the instructor was mad, but who cares? lol. My English is getting fantastic. I'm a writing consultant in our library and consult with American students. I'm the first international student who ever worked there! Also, I got A+ in all of my English composition classes and was said to be the best among American students:)
My English is getting fantastic:) lol

[BrandeX]

from the article that NATO posted

And again, what’s so interesting is how often the complaining students were careful to note that they had no issues with Chinese students from Hong Kong or Taiwan or Singapore or Malaysia or the Philipines or the United States, “who are not this way at all.” The above views really do seem to apply to just students from China.

why IS that? I've heard this before too... is it just the sheer numbers and/or relative lack of international exposure?

So my thinking is that maybe the problem is in the numbers. If 500 students from China go to one university as undergrads, it is just too easy for them to act as set out above. But if 40 students go to a small college that reviews the application intensely for more than just the numbers (test scores and dollars) and absolutely will not tolerate its students not participating in class discussions and the life of the college, it can work out just fine. Your thoughts people…

I imagine this is true to an extent. One thing that is also true is that certain colleges and unis in Britain at least really do accept the dregs of Chinese educations, students who have nowhere near the aptitude to take part in a degree that is run through a foreign language. I do language testing on the weekends, and recently there were a gang of kids that kept repeating that 'next year I go England'. Not if the scores I gave them had anything to do with it. 

"Chinese" from those other countries often have the same complaints about "mainlanders" too (if not outright disliking them on average). Being the same race or general background doesn't mean that they necessarily have the same culture. The U.S. for example was initially derived from GB, but today despite both having similar cultures, they are of course definitely distinct.

[NATO]

And often it's the smaller differences that are the most ferocious. When your identities are closer the minutiae become much more significant.

[MiddleKingdomMatt]

I go to a school with a lot of Chinese immigrants. Students who have been in this country most of their lives, and speak both fluent Chinese (typically Cantonese) as well as English.

They tend to isolate themselves, at least where I go. They form very tight knit cliques. Maybe it's a cultural thing, just getting along better because of a Chinese background. Chinese and American culture are farther apart than most cultures, and other immigrants probably don't have as big a base to latch on to and form a clique with.

Not to mention they all seem to isolate themselves to about three majors (which probably helps form the cliques): Accounting, Marketing and Finance.

[Jedi Smurf]

This pic is making me revise my opinion of Disney-themed parties.

[gonzo]

I teach a large mishmash of ESL high school students in Australia. The European kids [including Brazilians] hang out together, and speak English. The non-Chinese Asian kids do the same; its just their English isn't sufficiently up to speed to mix with the Europeans. But the Chinese zone off into Mandarin and Cantonese speaking groups, and are then puzzled by their relative lack of progress in English. Part of the problem is that there are so many of them its easy to do. However, the few Taiwanese we have are shunned by the mainlanders, so form friendships with locals and their English is flying.

[zero]

This pic is making me revise my opinion of Disney-themed parties.

There has got to be significant underwire work going on here ...

[Granny Mae]

Zero, my first thought was cosmetic surgery.

[gonzo]

You guys need to get out more. There are some very healthy East Asian females around, as the dopey looking guy by the door is about to find out.

Back to foreign students, rather than their breasts. The US currently hosts close to 600,000 overseas students, way ahead of Australia's 211,000. However, the US has more than 10x Australia's population. On a per capita basis, Australia leads all other OECD nation, by streets. I currently combine teaching and part time study, and my weekly university visit provides visual confirmation of these figures.

[CaseyOrourke]

I have a former student who is excelling at her American university (Miami-Oxford).  Here is part of a message from her.  She is writing finals now and I asked her if she would get all 'A's' again.     In emails she uses 'speaking' English sometimes.     She blamed me for her high mark on her IELTS exam      I am proud she was my student.   

Some students do make the transition 

I'm gonna get A+ for most of the class, except for calculus. My attendance was bad for that class and the instructor was mad, but who cares? lol. My English is getting fantastic. I'm a writing consultant in our library and consult with American students. I'm the first international student who ever worked there! Also, I got A+ in all of my English composition classes and was said to be the best among American students:)
My English is getting fantastic:) lol

I hope your student and mine can hook up at Miami. I think she will be a positive influence on her and make her stay that much better.